Review: Gravity Guy 2 (Xbox Live)

Score:
74%

Author: Miniclip

Version Reviewed: 1.0.0.0

Buy Link | Download / Information Link

While it has nothing to do with the game itself, it was nice to see that Gravity Guy 2, as a multi-platform title, was given a short exclusivity period on Windows Phone. I suspect that a lot of interesting sales data has now been gathered, and can be compared to a WP release where the title is already available on iOS and Android.

The game itself is clearly a sequel to Gravity Guy in name, a title that I found particularly exciting when I reviewed it. But this is not a game where you are getting more of the same. Gravity Guy 2 feels like it belongs on the same universe, but it's a different game altogether. Perhaps 'Gravity Guy: The Jumping Uncle' might be a better title.

Rather than switch gravity between the top or the bottom of the always scrolling landscape play field (as you did in the original), you now have two controls - jump and elevate. As for running, well you start to run, and you will never stop till you smash into an obstacle and fall out of the world. At which point your score is the distance you have travelled.

Jump is pretty much as you would expect, allowing your chapter to take to the air. You can jump once more when in the air to gain extra height, but this resets itself once you land on the ground again. The other movement is to elevate the next available horizontal platform so it comes out of the ground to meet you as you fall. This takes a lot more finesse to use, as the elevation speed is quite slow, and needs to be started very quickly when spotted to make the best use of it. You also need to keep holding down the soft-key to keep the platform rising.

What gives the game its challenge is that both of these controls (one under the right thumb, one under the left, with your phone in landscape mode) operate independently. You can jump, you can raise a floor, you can double jump, you can lower a floor, and one never interferes with the other. It's a bit like drumming, your thumbs are doing different things, and your brain needs to look ahead at the terrain, decide what power to use, and tell the correct thumb when to press the key.

It's all rather challenging, which means Gravity Guy 2 is initially hard to play. You can get by the first few hundred meters or so by focusing on just one of the controls, but you'll soon be needing to mix up your approach as you work through a level.

While the levels are random, giving you a different game every time, they appear to have similar constructions - I think that there are sections of the game arena that can be selected at random, although these feature a set number of platforms. This gives a good mix of knowing that something is passable, but not giving the players something they can learn by rote and regurgitate while playing. You will genuinely have to react to new terrain each time you play.

This increases the replay value no end, you will always be refreshed and have to pay attention when playing. To keep you coming back, as well as the high score of distance to look out for, you also have mini-challenges, such as 'run 250m three times', manage ten 'perfect' landings by hitting a bulls-eye mark, or set off five proximity alarms by jumping very close to them. These give you monetary rewards in the game, which can be used to purchase new characters to play with, or special powers and one-off awards, such as an extra life or a boost to 1000m when you start to play.

These are the same coins you can pick up during the game, so there are always opportunities to earn money. The alternative, as with many games that have an in-game currency, is to buy the coins using real world money through an in-app purchase system. This is where Gravity Guy 2 is looking to make some extra money for the developers. I think it's a fair system, especially as there is nothing that unbalances the game on offer, and the in-app purchasing simply means you get the bonuses quicker than if you solely collect coins.

Gravity Guy 2 is not the same game as Gravity Guy. In fact it sails so close to the wind that I think the Trades Description Act would take a serious look and ask the developers to think again about the naming. But there's no doubt that this infinite scrolling game is a worthy addition to the Xbox Live line-up, and a worthy title in a genre that already has a number of strong titles (I'm looking at you, Jetpack Joyride, and waiting for you to come to Windows Phones). It's a great arcade game, with a steep but rewarding difficulty level. It's perhaps a bit too twitchy in play for everyone, but it's certainly worth looking at, and I suspect a lot of people will want to champion this game as a fun title.

Reviewed by Ewan Spence at 23:14 UTC, April 12th 2013